The First Reform

The first priority of a Lessig administration would be to fix the corruption that has crippled Congress, by enacting legislation to restore the fundamental principle of a representative democracy: the equality of citizens.

That legislation — the Citizen Equality Act — is described in detail here. Its basic objective is to give to each citizen an equal stake in our democracy, so that our government responds to all of us, and not just to the few.

Passing this legislation would make practically every other policy described on this issues page easier to achieve. In some cases, passing this legislation is the only way these other policies could be achieved. And throughout the descriptions of these other policies, I will highlight the ways in which this corrupted inequality makes achieving the right answer difficult, if not impossible.

I emphasize this fundamental statutory reform first — because we need reform now, and this is something Congress could do with a simple legislative majority (or at least, with 60 votes in the Senate). Beyond this statutory reform, I would support constitutional reform. I have worked actively to support the states calling for a “proposing conventing” under Article V of the Constitution. I would expect any justice that I nominate for the Supreme Court would recognize the corruption in the current system of campaign finance.